“But then, why not simply dance attendance some with my in-laws?You who care about your sterling reputation and title above all surely sees this is the finest way to put the gossips to rest.”
Passionate and persistent.
Hart leaned forward in his desk; he lay his forearms atop the immaculate mahogany surface. “Do you want to know why, little brother?”
“I do wish you would stop calling me that,” Tremaine muttered.
“The moment you stop conducting yourself like a child, I will.” He didn’t let the younger man get a word in edgewise. “I have given that ignoble family far more than they deserve.” Heinhaled slowly through his nostrils in the calming technique he’d used since lad-hood. “Too much.”
“Bah.” Tremaine exploded to his feet; the leather screeched under the sudden shift in pressure. “As if your brief non-courtship of Miss McQuoid-Smith in the off Season required—”
“I was referring to you, Jeremy.” The quiet use of Tremaine’s given name, reserved for calming his brother, had the same affect it in the nursery nearly twenty-eight years earlier.
Tremaine froze mid-fight, and then sank back into his chair. “I love my wife. I am happier than I’ve ever been. I—”
“That does not erase the fact you are joined to a scandalous, noisy, unfashionable lot who, even with an earldom find doors opened to them not because there is any real honor in the peculiar Earl of Abington’s title but because of the matches their unruly lot made.”
“The most auspicious of which would have been to the Duke of Hartwell.”
Hart shrugged.
Tremaine flashed a crude gesture with his fingers. “Pompous bastard.”
“I possess one of the oldest titles in the kingdom, acres of land which bring in enough funds”—he grimaced around the crude mention ofmoney—“to see the next ten generations of Hartwell dukes live like kings.”
Just recalling the Marquess of Arbuthnott, he picked up his pen and dipped it into the intricate crystal well, etched with Hartwell’s crest, correcting his and Kilmartin’s oversight.
When finished, Hart spoke quietly. “I am not pompous, little brother. I am realistic and logical.”
“Tiringlyso.”
Satisfied the list was complete, he sprinkled powder from his pounce pot.
“I am already long past the point of when I should have married. By now, I should have an heir, a spare, and a backup to that one.”
“God, it is going to be delicious when you fall, Hart,” Tremaine drawled.
“I would never be so gauche.”
Hart turned his book around.
His brother leaned over and read the concise but acceptable list aloud.
“4th Duke of Oxfuird
9th Marquess of Mountgaret
16th Viscount Arbuthnott
14th Earl of Cobham
20th Baron de Ros”
“Not with that list.” Tremaine grinned. “Personally, with your stringent expectations and lofty view of your title, Oxfuird would make you a suitable partner, but Cobham has a decent wit, which given your preference for a chap with a sense of humor—”
Kilmartin doubled up in a fresh fit of amusement.
Captain and quartermaster collected their glasses and gave them a clink.